Page 49 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue2

Cascading Memorials: Public Places to Mourn

Ruth Wallen

We used to get a lot of rattlesnakes. Now you don’t see rattlesnakes and you don’t see deer. You still

get coyotes, and plenty of rabbits and squirrels.

I miss the frogs, too. Unless we get a pretty good rain that brings them all out, you don’t hear them at

all.

The other thing we had years ago was horned toads. I haven’t seen one in years. I remember that my

youngest boy had a horned toad in an aquarium. He hand fed it for six months with red ants and then

let it go. When the development came, the red ants got overtaken by black Argentinean ants. —RS

and HW

Carmel Mountain Chaparral in April 42”x16”

The statements shared above are from residents of Arroyo Sorrento, San Diego, a small enclave just

north of the University of California, San Diego and east of the coastal community of Del Mar. This is

the place I first visited upon moving to San Diego thirty years ago. I’ve been coming back here, and to

the wild mesa pictured above, misleadingly called Carmel Mountain, ever since. I imagine that similar

recollections could be elicited from many parts of the continent, although more readily here in

southern California where the human population has grown so rapidly. A hundred years ago there

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